Branislav Kinčok: Judicial rehabilitation as a determinant of political and social development in Slovakia in the first half of 1963

The paper attempts to analyse the impact of another rehabilitation wave of former Slovak communist officials convicted in political trials in 1949-1954 on political and social development in Slovakia in the first half of 1963, using extensive archival material. The time range of the paper is delimited by the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, which took place in October 1961, and by the establishment of the Barnabite Rehabilitation Commission in June 1963. It primarily analysis the activities of the Kolder Rehabilitation Commission, the results of which decisively influenced the subsequent political and social development in Slovakia. It mainly focuses on a key political and social case that had traumatised Slovak society since the early 1950s – the case of the so-called Slovak bourgeois nationalists with Gustáv Husák in the centre. The struggle for their rehabilitation eventually led to the birth of the Slovak national emancipation movement, which from 1963 sought to change the government system of the republic and transform Slovakia into a sovereign political entity that could significantly influence national affairs.